Auckland economic quarterly August 2018

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The Auckland Unitary Plan (UP) took about 9 months to start affecting building patterns, but the rate of response has been faster than expected.

The UP is now unequivocally delivering more brownfield growth, which maximises use of latent infrastructure capacity, makes public transport viable, and imposes fewer congestion externalities on other network users than sprawling development does.

Recent data further confirms something so obvious, it’s remarkable we have to make the point: people actually prefer living near work, on good public transport routes, with taps that run and toilets that flush, and near other amenities, than being further away from the city centre.

This range of amenities makes brownfield land more expensive than greenfield land for good reason – people value these amenities. Developers have realised this too and are taking up more opportunities to deliver in brownfield areas.